Plastic panels were put up in places to deter lovebirds and authorities launched a drive to get tourists to upload selfies instead of attaching a lock.

But nothing stands in the way of true love, and tourists have kept piling the locks on the bridge and elsewhere.

The Pont de l’Archeveche bridge in front of the Notre Dame cathedral is now as inundated with locks, while stray locks can often be spotted around the city.

Deploring “destruction of heritage” and a security risk for tourists on the overloaded Pont des Arts, Paris officials have decided enough is enough and will remove all locks from Monday.

“We will remove nearly one million padlocks, or 45 tons,” said city official Bruno Julliard, criticizing the “ugliness” of the locks on some of Paris’s most beautiful bridges.

The metal grills of the bridge will be replaced with works of art over the summer, and will later be replaced with clear panels.

“We want Paris to remain the capital of love and romance,” Julliard said, adding a campaign encouraging lovers to express their love in different ways — such as the selfie initiative — would get underway soon.

Guillermo, 33, from Argentina, who was about to clamp his lock on the bridge to show his feelings for his new girlfriend he hopes to marry one day, suggests collecting all the locks “to make a sort of statue or monument.”

The city’s move has also annoyed tour guide Vincent Jouaneau, who had accompanied two Philippine couples to the bridge.

“It is out of question to stop groups” from coming to attach locks to the bridge, he said, adding he would just take future tourists one bridge up to the Pont Neuf.

But the municipality is one step ahead, and is also planning to remove the metal grills from the other targeted bridges.

While the trend of attaching locks to the Pont des Arts began in 2008, the problem is not unique to Paris.

It is unclear where the idea of using the lock ritual to symbolize love originated, but the padlocks bearing lovers’ initials have spread from European capitals, to as far as Marrakech or China.

It’s one of those insane spur of the moments ideas that somehow spiraled into something completely useless. If the statistics are right, 50% of those marriage locks are now divorce, making the idea of love locks ridiculous. They completely wasted the purpose of locks.

doubting tomas

Solution : instead of using metal locks, using something that’s
lightweight to express the love.